Resolutely determined to succeed in their professional retraining following the health crisis, new profiles are turning to franchising. Portrait.
One of the many effects of the health crisis is its influence on the nature and profile of new franchise applicants. “There is a clear rejuvenation of project leaders, Covid-19 having had the effect of a revelator and a trigger in their decision-making to launch,” analyzes Laurent Kruch, Director of the Territories & Marketing Institute. “We also notice that 75% of new franchisees are first-time buyers,” said Emmanuel Jury, co-founder of Progressium, one of the leading agencies specializing in network development.
In part-time unemployment or confined to home by telecommuting, these new entrants had time to ask themselves the big questions, not only about their professional future, but also, more intimately, about their existential choices. “Among the sixty applications we received following our last campaign on LinkedIn, many candidates told us that they were guided by much deeper life choices, responding above all to the desire to satisfy personal desires or passions,” notes Antony Pereira, head of operations and development of the winery chain La Vignery. The sectors most affected by the pandemic, such as out-of-home catering, logically provided a large contingent of candidates who did not necessarily plan to choose the franchise model before the crisis. “Two-thirds of our cases over the past year have come from former employees in the catering sector who are looking to regain stability and a professional future. These profiles are particularly suitable for our sector,” says Florent Brélivet, managing director of the Boulangerie Louise chain.
Nurses and engineers retrained
Among the new candidates for the franchise are also those who have fought the pandemic on a daily basis in the health sector and who have been very hard hit by degraded working conditions. “Of the ten shops that we have just opened since the beginning of the year, two were created by former nurses who did not want to continue their original profession in this context and who have converted”, notes Claire Toutain, co-founder of Mademoiselle Vrac, a brand of food and hygiene-beauty products sold in bulk (16 shops).
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Rémi Felice has the singularity of being the first male candidate of this network who has doubled in size in a year. Aged 28, this computer engineer had been working for several years at Alizent, a subsidiary of Air Liquide. “For the last two years, I’ve been wanting to be more in tune with my personal aspirations. I wanted my professional activity to be more in line with my convictions and to value human relations and respect for the environment, he justifies. Telecommuting has been an opportunity to ask me the right questions. I told myself that if I didn’t do it now, I would never move.”
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Consumer of organic products for many years, he has also converted to the bulk three years ago. “I applied to this network because of its strong commitments in organic and “better to consume”. I sent my file at the end of March 2020 and I was caught quickly,” he continues. As a good engineer, he then carried out a market study near his home in Le Plessis-Robinson, in the Paris region, and noticed a shortage of bulk and organic groceries in the Gare district in Clamart, 5 kilometers from his home. After more than a year of research, he finds a room of 70 square meters. “I am convinced that the activity will work. First because the demand and the expectation are strong, then because I have prepared my conversion well. I must also stress that the network has accompanied me well and that the town hall supports my project,” he concludes very confidently. See you in mid-November for the opening of his shop.
